It’s been a tough week all round. I was shocked by how much Pash’s death affected me – considering I’d only met her once, and exchanged a few emails, and chatted on the forum, it felt like an enormous loss. Says a lot about her I guess, you didn’t even have to know her to feel the energy around her. So sad. Such a waste.
Anyway. I had a big project on, the Focus on Wantage booklet, and with the deadline looming and lots of ads having been sold that needed design, I broke my self-imposed rule of not working at weekends and work all day Saturday. And again on Sunday, from 9pm till 2am. Yuck. In between I had a nice time with my man, we went on a photo trek to the Rollright Stones and Oxford Canal. Photos to follow, when I have the time and energy to put them on Flickr.
Anyway, back to the work. Waking at 7am on Monday after 5 hours’ sleep wasn’t good, but I managed to put in a full day’s work and went to bed early-ish, but then did a 15 hour day on Tuesday. Half the problem was that when it came to converting all the pages – 48 of them – to PDFs the software kept letting me down; it would do one page fine, but then the next page would show with some of the images missing. I tried all sorts of things but eventually found the only way it would work was to do one page, shut the software down, open the software, do the next page, shut the software down, ad infinitum. Took me 5 hours to get through 28 pages, and I ended up going to bed at 1am with 20 still to go, having emailed the “boss” to apologise profusely for missing the deadline. Slept really badly and then off to 4N Witney for 7.30, to fnd we had five visitors booked and half the team off sick, not good when I felt too exhausted to move.
Anyway. Got through it of course, spoke to the fab Flying Doctor who offered some advice for the PC and got things working again and I finally got the job delivered at 1pm.
And then today was Pash’s funeral. I had 4N Oxford first, then did the long drive down to Poole in pouring rain. The service was in a Catholic Church so was long, the full communion and all, but Pash’s dad, husband and best friend all spoke and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. So sad. Really tough to think of beautiful, vivacious Pash in the cardboard coffin (though that would be my choice too, cardboard or wicker). I cried. Lots. And again on the way home. And again this evening, over a couple of strong G&Ts.
Friday tomorrow. Back to the Bible proofreading. It’s been decided that I will just do the Old Testament now, as it’s such a huge job, and someone else will do the New one. And the deadline has been pushed back a bit. So that’s good – but will still keep me busy for the next few weeks.
Roll on the weekend. I need some sleep.
If you fancy a read and a cry, have a look at Pash’s blog. Shows how inspiring she was. The link takes you to her first entry.
RIP Pash. I was so lucky to have known you.
